oh yeah, and...

I, too, think it would be cool to be Princess of Monaco

Talk about a fancy city! What a culture change from the modest cliff villages of Cinque Terre!

We left the hotel (without backpacks this time, phew!) around 9:30am, ready to explore and find breakfast. We didn't find much in the way of a pastry shop or cafe, but we did find the Casino of Monte-Carlo. It is huge and ornate, with pristine gardens and fountains, and almost looks like it could be a church when viewed from far away (an indication, perhaps, of the belief system of the wealthy???). We took a few pictures and ate a clementine (from the hotel fitness center, not from one of the many clementine trees in the city, full of fruit).... however, this didn't do much for the 3 of us. So we went off in search of something, anything to eat (we found plenty of Bentley, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, and even Maybach dealerships- cool, but unhelpful), and eventually found a sort of fun zone for kids/adults that had a very chic McDonald's on the 3rd floor. We were the only customers for the most part, but we did not sit in silence by any means... they had clubbing music on at 10:30am. I guess the Monaconians enjoy their loud dance music.

We left the McDo, walked along the coast line, and took a water taxi towards the Palais and vielle ville (old town). The sun was beginning to peep out as we walked up the steps (yes, more steps...although had we known, we would have taken the elevator the whole way up!). The coast line was amazing, but sort of bizarre- huge yachts, tall luxury apartment buildings with seaside views, and cloudy mountains. But when we got up to the top of the hill with the palace and old town, we started to feel like we were in Disneyland. Everything was so clean and perfect feeling and the buildings were so pretty with their rot iron balconies and ornate molding. We wound our way through the old village to the Palace... a very castle-y looking building with guards in funny looking hats, piles of canon balls, and more beautiful views of the coast.

We enjoyed having the sun come out... it was almost hot, well, not hot, but too warm for our winter coats. We went down the hill a different way towards the harbor with the hockey rink and ferris wheel. There were tons of little places to get sophisticated French fair food (crepes, waffles, candied apples, and fondue), carnival rides, and even a course for little kids to get inside big plastic balls and roll around. The fair still had a lot of Christmas decorations up... so we took a few more pictures (weird to have Christmas scenes in the same place as yachts, palm trees, and the Mediterranean).

After a morning of walking around Monte-Carlo, we felt like we finally got the feel of how to navigate the city. It's not so much big, as just complex... everything seems to be build on top of each other... elevators and escalators taking you to different parts of town. By about 1pm, we headed to the hotel to get our bags and get to the train station.

We are now home in Lyon, ready for bed before our big Paris adventure for New Years Eve! Enjoy the pictures. I'm saving a good one for my next post. I'm not bringing my computer tomorrow, so I may not blog again until 2011!

Happy last day of 2010!

More Cinque Terre Pictures (one of Monaco at night)

Cinque Terre E Monaco

What a day! We've done everything from catch moving trains to walking up and down hundreds of stairs to finding ourselves in probably one of the most wealthy places on Earth.

We started our day in La Spezia, eating a nice little buffet breakfast of croissants, granola, and fruit on the top floor with a lovely view of an Italian hillside scene. We left the hotel around 9:30am (my dad had already gone to buy our Cinque Terre rail passes) and got on our first regional train to Riomaggiore (for those of you who don't know, Cinque Terre is a series of 5 seaside cliff villages in the Northern Mediterranean coast, Riomaggiore being the first on our tour).

We got off the train and saw a mural of the unsung heroes of Cinque Terre (the builders, towns people, etc. who have made this area what it is today). We then went on the only walk that was open to us for this time of year (usually you can hike/walk between all 5). It was a beautiful path along the cactus covered cliffs... we could see breath taking views of caves, waves hitting the rocks, cute pastel colored villas nestled in the cliffs. On this path, called the Via dell'Amore, there were thousands of locks linked to anything that was a permanent fixture of the path. These were put here by lovers who have vowed to stay together, and if not, they unlock their lock and chuck it in the ocean (although hopefully they throw it in a trashcan because this was an eco-tourist area).

After taking several pictures along the trail, we found ourselves in the next town called Manarola. This town had a pretty waterfall flowing into the ocean, boats dry-docked in town, and old Italian woman gossiping loudly from their balconies. We took a minute to take tons of pictures here, buy postcards and other eco-friendly products, and take in the ocean view from a bench at the train station.

We were getting pretty hungry by this point, so our plan was to find the first restaurant in the next of the 5 towns. When we got off the train, we realized that not only did the next train not come for another hour, but in order to even get near what resembled a city with food establishments, we were going to have to climb literally hundreds of stairs, with our coats, backpacks, and purses. So.... we walked up the stairs, huffing and puffing and taking pictures along the way (we had a great view of Manarola at this point).

Finally, we made up the hill, found ourselves a nice little (cramped) restaurant, we ate 3 big bowls of pasta (pesto pasta for me, seafood pasta for my dad, and spaghetti for Stephanie). The next and best train option was to arrive at 1:34.... we finished eating at about 1:17.... we hoped there would be a bus or taxi to take us back in time, but couldn't figure that option out, so we ran down the hundreds of stairs. We saw this train come and go. For some reason, we didn't factor in the second train to arrive ten minutes later and started walking a little slower. On our nice slow part of the walk, an elderly Italian jogger yelled out, "Watch out for the pile of dog shit, Welcome to Italia! Hallelujah!" Steph responded, "Grazie."

Then, we saw the next train, and sprinted for it... miraculously, we made it as the train was moving away (I was last on... very close to toppling over backwards with my heavy backpack). We made it to Vernazza... thinking we had 10 minutes to get on and off, so my dad left Steph and I to run around town with my camera while we recouped from our last jog. He came back and we informed him that we actually 40 minutes until the next train. So we took the camera and walked leisurely around Vernazza while he recouped from his jog around town. This was another beautiful town with a harbor and small beach. We stopped for gelato and brought some back for my dad.

While scarfing down gelato, an announcement came on to tell us our train would be late, so we went exploring a little more.... eventually got on the train, and were able to see the last of the 5 from the train (Monterosso). For the next 4 hours, we trained to Monaco-Monte-Carlo...

Right from the get-go, we knew Monaco would be different... the train station was marble.... we took an elevator to the street... and the perfectly manicured lawns had no dogs allowed signs. We had a quick look at the harbor lights, seeing a ferris wheel, ice hockey game, royal palace, and casino from afar. There are a lot of really nice cars. And our hotel is probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in my life. Steph and I are currently lounging on chaise-lounges near the bar, using free wifi. Very comfortable here, however the music is a little spastic, probably much like this blog post.

Arrivederci my friends! Tomorrow we see Monaco for real and head home to Lyon. Enjoy the pics!

Pictures from Sun/Mon in Lyon

Chambery, Milan-ish, and La Spezia

This morning, Steph, my dad and I got on a bus at 5:22am (ugh) after getting all of 5 hours of sleep. We got on the train to Chambery at 6:31am, took a little nap, and got off...heading straight for the Elephant fountain. It was nice and snow covered, so it looked different than the last time I was there (it was nice and wet from rain the last time). We then walked down towards the

Duke of Savoie Palace, stopping at the same Tea shop my friends and I stopped at a few months ago. I ordered us 3 chocolats chauds, (or melted chocolate bars as my dad called it) and 3 brioche aux pralines.

We had enough time to see the palace, go back in time down the 14th century cobbled streets, take a few pictures and.... have an encounter with a funny little French woman at the Savoie museum. We were about to head back to the train station, but I wanted to show them the church with the trompe l'oeil paintings (as it is such a big deal in this region). We wanted to go through the museum to get to it, but the museum was closed.... after finding out that we were Washintonians, she screamed, ecstatic because her son works there in a restaurant. She showed me her sons cell phone number... and then unlocked all the doors to get us into the Cathedral as quickly as possible.

After my dad and Steph got a good look around, we walked back to the train station and got on our train to Milan. This train ride was longish... about 4 hours and we were served lasagna (which we had to pay for, so not quite as cool as a plane ride). However, the views from this train were spectacular (honestly, I only stayed awake to see a few amazing views of unreal looking mountains outside of Torino, it was more my dad that stayed awake the whole time to tell us about it later hehe).

We got off the train in Milan, with an hour layover to use the 1 euro potties (yikes!), step a few feet outside to see the ultra modern city with tall glass buildings (and some super chic Italians), and walk around the mammoth train station. Our next train, to La Spezia, a city right outside of the Cinque Terre region, was a regional train. Our seats were in a compartment with 6 seats, 3 and 3 sitting across from each other. The woman who was already sitting in the compartment when we got there spoke only Italian and some French...so we were able to figure out where to sit. Then, a husband and wife couple got on, and they spoke some English. Then... an older woman, in a heavy fur coat came in, while my dad was out going to the bathroom. She sat in his seat, asked us to move our luggage to fit hers, and closed the compartment door. The first woman shook her head the entire time...like as if to say... what a drama queen. Then, a younger woman got on the train (she actually said mamma mia...like you think Italian people would do), and it turned out the couple didn't have reserved seats in this compartment... so there was a lot of Italian and hand gestures and they eventually got up. However, this lead to an in-depth discussion by the 3 other woman on riding trains, life, etc. who knows (Steph probably... she listened to them the most and could pick up some stuff with her knowledge of Spanish).

By this point, my head was killing me, the compartment was hot because the old lady with the fur coat turned the heat up, and we all sorta felt like we were in the twilight zone. Oh, and I forgot to mention, at some point, my dad ended up in the hallway talking to the husband of the couple about Cinque Terre. Had I not been so cranky tired, I would have probably thought it was more entertaining.... but at the time, I was kind of going nuts!

We got out of the train, our hotel was found easily just a minute from the station (literally a minute) and asked for the nearest pizza place (when in... Italy). I had pesto pizza, my dad had sausage pizza, and Steph has a farnita (I think), which is some specialty of this town (like an eggy pizza crust that you put your own cheese on...) We also had desert, 2 types of tiramisu and a creme caramel (flan type dish).

My dad walked down the pedestrian walkway lined with Christmas lights and local/international stores (Steph and I went back to shower and get ready for bed). He said there was a nice park down by the water... but sadly had a lot of trash/graffiti that kind of ruined it for him. Hopefully he will be more impressed tomorrow in the beautiful Cinque Terre. We have enjoyed seeing huge palm trees and fruit trees (we think they're clementine trees?), even this far North in Italy.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! We will have a nice breakfast buffet tomorrow at the hotel, go to the Cinque Terre information desk, and head out, catching our train to Monaco by 4pm.

Reste Cool:)

ps, I never fully explained what we had for dinner last night. It was so yummy, it's worth the detail:) For starters, I had a salad with avocado and asparagus (sounds weird, but was good), dad and steph had the courge soup (squash soup...it was very good); for main plates my dad and I had the chicken with some sort of leek au gratin and chestnuts, Steph had the fish in a buttery green minestrone soup, and we all shared sorbet/fruit salad for desert. Not only was the food excellent, but the waiters and ambiance was very nice, plus we had a view of the flower bouquet statue thingy... Le Sud is the place for a nice dinner out in Lyon! (I'm such a technical food critique, I know...)

Steph is here too!

Alright- can't talk long, I'm SO tired and we have to get up in 5 hours, EEK!

Had an awesome day touring with my dad, picked steph up on time (albeit a little tram delay in which we had to switch to a coach bus), took a fast taxi cab ride home, went downtown to see Vieux Lyon and more at night, and went out to dinner at Le Sud (delicious 3 course meal!).

Tomorrow, we head to Chambery, Milan (train switch), and La Spezia, Italy! WOO HOO!

Reste Cool:)

Part 3: Lucerne